Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• Erasing non-destructively with layer masks
• Fine-tuning layer masks with tools like Blur
• Making a selection from your mask
• CAUTION: make sure you’re editing the mask and not the layer
• Moving or copying masks from one layer to another
• Using vector masks and combining them with pixel masks

Recorded, edited and uploaded with Screenflow.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

Coders often find it difficult to relate to designers, much less collaborate and communicate with them in a productive — and enjoyable! — way. If you’re already working with a designer, these tips can help you better understand them; if you’re looking for a designer, this could help you find a competent one.

Know what you want

This isn’t 100% necessary, but it will usually help save you money in the long run. Going through this post and preparing what needs to be done before even approaching a designer will show your professionalism and respect for their craft. This could help you snag a great designer rather than just a good one.

Being decisive also falls under this category. Flip-flopping on design decisions can be frustrating for the one redoing that button for the nth time. Sometimes it’s hard to know what you want until you see it, but that’s why you should…

Find reference material

I like to build a Mood Board for new projects. A Mood Board is a collection of materials that reflect the feeling – or mood – of the look you want. Start saving images or taking screenshots of ANYTHING that you like the style of; fonts, lighting, art style, textures, costumes, colour schemes, etc. To organize them, add notes describing what you like about them and how you see it fitting into your overall vision. It could also be beneficial to organize them into folders: backgrounds, characters, objects, logos, etc.

For example, you might say, “I like the wardrobe from Sin City, but I really like the art style from Knight’s Rush. And I liked how in Traffic all the scenes with Douglas were tinted blue and all the scenes with del Toro were tinted yellow… maybe we could do something like that for the two worlds in my game.”

Here’s some images from a mood board I created for Face Race:

This may seem like a lot of work, but you don’t have to be super detailed, and having a folder on your desktop that you can drag images to as you go about your day isn’t that difficult. You’d be amazed at how much this can help your designer realize the vision you have in your head. The alternative is paying your designer to come up with a mood board and develop the visual theme for the game from scratch. Some may prefer this, but expect it to cost a lot more.

Be clear and constructive

Designers can be touchy about their designs, and can easily get emotionally attached to a concept or idea that you’re not as excited about as they are. Designers who can handle iterations — and even big changes — well are gems, hang on to them. But giving solid feedback is a huge plus on your end. Saying, “It’s just not quite there yet… but I can’t put my finger on why,” while often true, is one of the most frustrating things a designer can hear.

Try to pinpoint what it is you like or don’t like about a specific design element. Again, if you can’t put it into words, it helps to find reference material that shows more of what your going for. “I like the shape of what you’ve got here, but maybe the colour tones could be more like the ones in this JPG, and the lines could be bolder and more cartoony… What do you think?”

Know what you need and be detailed

Don’t be afraid to get technical. If your designer has worked on games before, they’ll know what parralax backrounds and sprite sheets are. Tiling, variations on a sprite, whether or not the highlight graphic is overlaid on top or replaces the original sprite, how many animation cycles you need, etc. The technical details of how the graphics are actually used by the code really help a designer understand the requirements of the project.

Understand that in your conversations with any good designer, what you need (or the best way to do things, graphically) may change. Make sure the scope of the design project doesn’t escalate, or make sure your designer is properly compensated for the extra time if it does.

Set clear deadline expectations

Make sure your designer knows all important milestones that need to be met, and which ones are the priority (eg. Which ones other people are depending on, etc) and which ones can slide a bit. If the scope is starting to shift (as described above), bring it up again and make sure it’s still doable, or adjust as necessary.

If your designer is increasing project scope through new design ideas, you can rein this in with: “That’s a cool idea, but we need to stay on track for this release. I’ll put it on the list of things to consider for the next release.”

If your designer is on contract and not working for you full time, chances are they have other ongoing projects. Make sure you have a really clear conversation with them about what their availability is, and if you need them to be working on your project exclusively for a fixed time, make sure you schedule this well in advance so that they can plan for it – or expect to pay more for them to rearrange their schedule.

Explain functionality

I find it extremely beneficial to know as much detail as possible about how an object works in-game. This includes how it moves, what it does, how it affects other objects, why a player would want to use it, etc. Being able to play with a working prototype is ideal here, video is the next best thing. Creating an icon with a clear visual metaphor for an object or power-up, for example, is impossible without knowing these kinds of details.

Expect game design feedback

We’re designers. We like making things look cool. Expect to hear things like, “You know… if you did it this way, you could have this thing come sliding out the side, and a bunch of sparks go flying and this other thing goes shooting out of the front of it, and all this other stuff goes flying in the opposite direction, and the player gets a huge bonus, and…”

Personally I’m a game designer at heart, so giving game design feedback comes with the territory. Make it clear that feedback is welcomed, but not everything can or will be implemented. A good designer already knows this.

Trust us

This can take time if you just started working with a new designer, but try not to micro-manage small design decisions. If you need clarification about why your designer did something a certain way, by all means ask. If you have an alternative suggestion, start a conversation about which method would work better and why. We know we’re working for you, and implementing your vision in a beautiful way is our ultimate goal; but in general, we won’t tell you how to code if you won’t tell us how to design.

Sometimes it really is just a matter of taste or opinion. But most of the time, if you don’t trust the design sense of your designer, well, maybe it’s time to find a new designer. A designer’s portfolio should tell you ahead of time if they have the design sense you’re looking for.

Get your source files

This should be non-negotiable. You are paying the designer to create work for you. Make sure it’s clear from the beginning that you expect to have all finished Photoshop files, Illustrator files, etc. Personally, I set up a Dropbox shared folder for each client exactly for this purpose.

Stay away from a designer who won’t agree to this; it costs twice as much to do the same job again down the road, if you need an edit done. I’ve talked to too many devs who’ve been screwed by designers who won’t give up “their” working files.

UPDATE: As steveo has noted in the comments, if the work being created is intended to be used as a template for future revisions (which could possibly be done by someone else), you can expect to pay more for your source files, as there is added value there for you. In the end, just make sure you talk about this issue up front so everyone is clear.

Why can’t we be friends?

Oh wait, we can! Coders and designers have great working relationships all the time, and make great games together. If you have other tips, or a story to share (positive or negative) about working with designers, please share in the comments. This is the kind of thing where we can all learn from each other’s stories.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• What am I clicking on? (or: why double-clicking on a layer seems to do something different every time)
• Create a new layer
• Move & select layers
• Transform layers
• Group layers
• Duplicate layers
• Duplicate layer effects
• Merge layers
• Fill layers with a colour
• Lock layers
• Layer opacity
• Layer blend modes

Recorded, edited and uploaded with Screenflow.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

View the game in the App Store.

Logo

Icon

Ship

Here’s the original concept I was provided for the ship, along with the final version.

And some nice high-res renders:

Building the ship in “Fast Motion”

This was made using a sweet script I got from @majicDave that takes a screenshot every ten seconds.

I also made some animated power-up graphics, hand-painted nebulas, and made the Manic Gaming website.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

- Ted Mico, Interscope / Geffen / A&M

Everyone and their dog has an app or game idea. The skill to implement that idea, and implement it well, is much less common. If you are a designer and love games, this post is for you. The past year and a half have taught me a lot about being a graphic designer and game designer — but not a coder — and what that means when it comes down to actually making and publishing a game on the App Store.

So you’re not a coder. What CAN you do?

Do what comes naturally to you. Use the things that you’re really good at, then find others who are really good at the other stuff, and get them on your side. It can be tempting to think you can do it all yourself… believe me, you’re going to have enough to do without having to learn how to code. Building a good team allows each team member to pour all of their energy into what they are best at and are passionate about.

But before you even start looking for a programmer, there are a few things you should be doing.

Marketing

If you wait until your app is finished to start marketing it (and yourself), you’re missing the point. Of course you can’t market something that doesn’t exist (much… but that’s another discussion), but you can get out there and be known. Hang out on the Touch Arcade forums. Get on Twitter and meet other devs, the iPhone dev community is incredible. But most importantly, don’t forget to go outside!

Getting referred to someone is worth a thousand forum posts. Get involved locally in user groups, even if they’re not specific to gaming or programming. New media groups are great because of the mix of talent you meet, and everyone travels in the same kinds of circles. You never know who will be the person who knows the person who is perfect for your team.

Start collecting email addresses. This may seem old school, but go get a free MailChimp account. Any time you have a game idea, put up a teaser page with a “Let me know when this comes out” signup form. Having a store of email addresses that you can legitimately send announcements to can be crucial come launch day.

Needs more awesome

The best thing you can do for yourself — and this will help you find a programmer — is to make your idea way more awesome than it already is.

You really have to turn it up to 11. You can do this in a number of ways, but primarily you need to prototype.

Paper Prototypes

A surprising number of game styles can be prototyped on paper, not just RPGs. Puzzle games, action games, platformers, and even FPS games. Prototyping helps you think about the details and mechanics of your game in a way that you wouldn’t have, just thinking it through in your head. I found that grabbing a notebook and scribbling out each screen helped immensely with clarifying the design of the game.

A couple articles on the subject:
Paper Prototyping: 5 Facts for Designing in Low-Tech
Gama Sutra – The Paper Chase: Saving Money via Paper Prototyping

Digital Prototyping

There are a number of tools for doing this, the simplest being something like iMockups for iPad or Keynote. It’s surprising how much you can fake with Keynote, and it can really give you a feel for how the app is supposed to look and work. Here’s a video of an example, actually running on an iPhone.

The point of prototyping: Iterate. Get feedback. Repeat.

If you can really hammer out your game design early, you can help prevent that feeling of needing to change it later in the dev cycle, when change is so much harder (and more expensive) since you’ve already invested so much into the way it is.

When getting feedback, don’t take criticisms personally. In fact, use forms to get feedback. Here’s a great post by @MarkusN on how to create effective ones that actually generate useful information.

Having a good design doc with lots of mockups will help tell your programmer a lot more about what your app is supposed to do than just a whole bunch of text.

Learn

Not only should you constantly be getting better at what you’re good at, you should also get into Xcode. I got the excellent screencast series Writing your first iPhone application by Bill Dudney. It’s now over a year old, so I’m not sure how much of the SDK has changed, but it really helped me understand Xcode and Interface Builder. I was able to create all of the UI for Face Race myself. This allowed my programmers to focus on “real” code (most programmers hate doing UI stuff).

This also has the added benefit of enabling you to talk to your coder and understand most of what they’re saying. Good communication is essential, so it helps a lot if you speak their language, if only a little.

I also recommend learning Core Animation (@neror is the guy to talk to here, check out his awesome code library, FTUtils), because it’s fun.

Have a plan

Get organized. Find some business and marketing plan templates. Here’s some Canadian resources, I imagine business plans are fairly “nationality-neutral”. If you’ve gone through all the steps and have everything figured out, you’re going to look a lot more appealing to a potential team member.

The big question: How do you find a programmer?

Having a really good idea helps…  Your enthusiasm about it will be contagious (or annoying, in which case it might not be as good an idea as you think). Having a well-thought-out, well-prepared idea demonstrates to your future programmer that you have it together and are ready and able to produce a professional product. So, you’ve got your idea, how do you actually find someone…?

Programmers are expensive

And rightly so.

You need money, which means you need funding. Having an awesome prototype is the single most important step to getting funding. Look into government grants or funds for this kind of thing in your area, you never know what might be out there.

But there are ways to work with a programmer if you don’t have tons of money…

Collaborate

iPhone programmers are highly sought-after, and it’s just too much time/risk for them to work for revenue share, especially for someone inexperienced.

Start small. Find a young, but talented programmer (maybe no iPhone exp). Get them some intro training materials, pay for their dev status, lend them an iPhone. A talented programmer can pick up iPhone dev very quickly, and someone young might be looking for a cool project to add to their portfolio, and could be more willing to work exclusively (or mostly) for rev-share.

Do written contracts. Talk about what happens if your coder has to stop partway through the project; how does that affect their rev-share?

Get a small app on the store. For your first app, start small. Do it for the learning experience. Getting a finished app on the store is a huge accomplishment. Just don’t let your first app be a free app. This diminishes your own value as a developer. Once you have a larger repertoire of apps, you can experiment with other pricing models.

Consider a work-share. Dedicate a certain number of hours per week for each other’s projects. Track your time for everything; I use On The Job to make this super easy. Awesome software by @danmessing.

This can save you both the extra time taken fiddling around with things that you’re not so good at. You programmers out there, wouldn’t you like to have a designer in your back pocket? Programmers need designers too:

Don’t sell yourself short, you (designers) are very important too. For example: White Peak’s Labor Mate (a contraction timer app) had a terrible “stopwatch in a diaphragm” kind of icon — sorry Kirby, harsh but true  @KirbyT hired a professional designer to redo his icon and here’s the result:

Again, meeting someone face to face increases your chances of doing work-share projects a thousand-fold. If you can pull it off, go to Apple’s Tech Talks; go to 360iDev (seriously, it’s awesome); go to WWDC. The contacts you make there will be way more important than anyone you could meet online, guaranteed. It can be expensive, but it’s well worth it.

Effectively communicating with developers

Go read this great article on Smashing Magazine, basic points here:

Read that whole article, and take it to heart. To a programmer, working with someone like this is a one-in-a-million experience.

Be something that people will talk about

Make your project itself a story. What makes you unique? People like a good story; share yours. Here’s a great post by Area 161 on the importance of a good personal story.

To do:

• Make awesome prototype
• Have plan
• Find programmer
• Be involved in development
• Sell game

Don’t: Go to a programmer and say, “Hey, I’ve got this awesome idea for an iPhone app, wanna make it for me and split it 50-50?” They only hear: “You do all the work, I’ll take half the money.”

Do: Get your poop in a group. Acknowledge the amount of work involved. Take control of the project. Plan it out. Be prepared. Be professional. Make an awesome prototype. You take all of this to a potential programmer and it’s a whole different ballgame.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

Click here for info on getting contract art done by We Heart Games.

More samples will be posted online as the games I’m currently working on become public.

The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to use Layer Comps to save layer visibility settings so can easily switch between visibility “states” for multiple layers (and even layer styles) at once. This saves you from having a separate document or layer group for each instance of your graphic, and makes your source PSD’s easier to update.

Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• Create broad layer comps to set overall visibility settings for multiple layers at once.
• Fine-tune your layer comps so that you have a comp for every instance of the graphic you are editing.
• Learn how adding and deleting layers affects layer comps.

Addendum:

I realized after recording that I sort of left you hanging with an alternate art style (the blue version) and didn’t really give a way to manage that. Here’s how:

• Right-click on the “1″ layer comp and duplicate it:
  
• Rename the layer comp to “1-normal blue”.
• Change the visibility settings so that your blue layer is turned on.
• Right-click on the layer comp again and select “Update Layer Comp” and you’re done:
  

Download the finished Photoshop file that was created in this screencast.

Recorded, edited and uploaded with Screenflow.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

The latest entry in my iDevBlogADay “Photoshop for Devs” series, I show you how to make a master theme template for your games using a single Photoshop file, and export all the required images in a single step. This process can save you hours of annoying, repetitive work.

Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• Lay out your template file using shape layers and “placed” textures for resolution independence.
• Use Photoshop Slices to cut up the document and save out multiple PNG files.
• Create a new theme and save out a whole new batch of images in a few seconds.
• Use Adjustment Layers to quickly create colour variant themes.

Download the finished Photoshop file that was created in this screencast.

Recorded, edited and uploaded with Screenflow.

This post is part of iDevBlogADay, a group of indie iPhone development blogs featuring two posts per day. You can keep up with iDevBlogADay through the web site, RSS feed, or Twitter.

Nothing’s as simple as it seems

In the past couple days I’ve gotten a handful of “submissions” from devs who wanted to take me up on my offer. Some were from people I know, some were from people who already knew I liked their game, and some were from people I’ve never talked to who were — as many devs are — looking for a way to get some free exposure for their struggling game. I’ve been there, I know how you feel!

In thinking about this, there are three groups of people that benefit from this kind of initiative. Depending on which of these groups I want to focus on will change how I approach this kind of thing.

Visitors to this site

People appreciate recommendations and word of mouth when buying games, far more than any of the other myriad ways we might hear of a game. That’s why I wanted to approach this as “games I honestly recommend” rather than just “advertising.” I’ve actually directly contacted the developers of some of my favourite games, to ask for an ad to put on my site.

If this group were my focus, one approach to finding good games to recommend would be to ask others for their favourite games, not including games they made themselves. This might be a good way to find some good games, but doesn’t necessarily help you if you are in the next group…

Game developers

Part of this experiment is to help out other struggling devs by providing exposure to good games that are having a hard time with visibility. I’ve received an unbelievable amount of support from the dev community and want to give back in ways that I’m able. If devs were the focus, I’d open it up and post every ad that was sent to me in the hope that it might help some of you raise your visibility a bit. But as I’ve said before, this goes against one of the primary reason for doing it: giving good recommendations to my site visitors.

Myself

Let’s be honest here, I like playing good games, and having devs send me promo codes for good games is even better. And yes, I’m using LinkShare, so I might even get a few bucks out of it. If I made myself the focus, I’d push to get as many ads and promo codes as possible, but this was never the reason for this thing. I also don’t have time to become a full-out review site, trying new games all day.

Conclusion

In the end it’s going to work out roughly in this priority, all based on how much spare time I have to spend on this kind of thing:

• If I find an indie game I want to recommend, I’ll contact the dev directly and ask for an ad, if they’re interested.
• If I know you or we’ve chatted on Twitter and you’ve got a game you want me to try, let me know and I’ll have a look. If I turn you down, I’ll try to give some feedback on what I didn’t like about the game.
• If someone recommends someone else’s game to me, I’ll also have a look. If I like it, I’ll contact the dev directly.
• If we’ve never talked, well, sorry, but you’re down here. I’ll still try to look at the game and even give some feedback, but again, this is a spare-time kind of thing for me.

I’ll still try to look at anything people send me, but for me it all comes down to the amount of time spent on this. I’m not trying to be a game review site. I wanted to do this because I figured it wouldn’t take up a lot of my time, wouldn’t cost me anything, and might help some others. I don’t have much spare time right now (running two businesses from home with four kids in the house – you can imagine), so I’m just going to take this as it comes. I definitely don’t want this to turn into a big “thing”!

Helping iPhone developers hate using Photoshop a little less with simple tricks that make workflows more efficient. View the rest of the screencasts in the “Photoshop for Devs” series.

• The basics: creating shapes.
• Selecting and moving points using the Path Selection Tool.
• Editing points (adding and removing points, converting points from corners to curves)
• Booleans (subtracting a shape from another, changing boolean settings after)
• Copy and paste shapes within a layer and from one layer to another

Recorded, edited and uploaded with ScreenFlow.